The Boy with the Star Tattoo

• Author: Talia Carner
• Genre: Historical Fiction
• Publication Date: January 9, 2024
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks

Thank you to William Morrow Paperbacks and Tess Day for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

From the acclaimed author of The Third Daughter comes an epic historical novel of ingenuity and courage, of love and loss, spanning postwar France—when Israeli agents roamed the countryside to rescue hidden Jewish orphans—to the 1969 daring escape of the Israeli boats of Cherbourg.

1942: As the Vichy government hunts for Jews across France, Claudette Pelletier, a young and talented seamstress and lover of romance novels, falls in love with a Jewish man who seeks shelter at the château where she works. Their whirlwind and desperate romance before he must flee leaves her pregnant and terrified.

When the Nazis invade the free zone shortly after the birth of her child, the disabled Claudette is forced to make a heartbreaking choice and escapes to Spain, leaving her baby in the care of his nursemaid. By the time Claudette is able to return years later, her son has disappeared. Unbeknown to his anguished mother, the boy has been rescued by a Youth Aliyah agent searching for Jewish orphans.

1968: When Israeli naval officer Daniel Yarden recruits Sharon Bloomenthal for a secret naval operation in Cherbourg, France, he can’t imagine that he is the target of the agenda of the twenty-year-old grieving the recent loss of her fiancé in a downed submarine. Sharon suspects that Danny’s past in Youth Aliyah may reflect that of her mysterious late mother, and she sets out to track her boss’s extraordinary journey as an orphan in a quaint French village all the way to Israel.

As Danny focuses on the future of his people and on executing a daring, crucial operation under France’s radar, he is unaware that the obsessed Sharon follows a breadcrumb trail of clues across the country to find her answers. But she is wholly unprepared for the dilemma she must face upon solving the puzzle.

I first heard about this book in November/December 2023, when it popped up on my Instagram radar. Another account had shared about how this book was being slammed with 1 star reviews on Goodreads well in advance of ARCs going out, and taking a quick look at the reviews shows that each of them refers to “Zionist propaganda” or some other hateful nonsense about the author’s personal history, the founding of the state of Israel, or various other personal issues that had nothing to do with the book. In fact, the review bombing made it clear that none of the “reviewers” had actually read the book, even though it was already obvious since no ARCs had even been made available. So I reached out to a publisher for the first time and specifically requested a copy of this book. And I’m incredibly glad that I did.

No matter how much I learn about Jewish history, there’s always more to learn. And while I have read a lot of books about the Holocaust, there are very few books that I’ve encountered that discuss what came afterwards. This is only the second that I have read (the first being This Rebel Heart by Katherine Locke), and I found it incredibly interesting. As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I heard testimony many times of families who left Jewish children with their Christian neighbors, in orphanages, or with friends, only to have the children be brainwashed with antisemitic messaging, or to be adopted into a “good Christian family” with no trail to follow. In fact, one of my own family members was reclaimed from a church-run orphanage and experienced significant trauma from what she was told while staying there.

This story is told in two different timelines, both fascinating and emotional. One takes place in 1942 France, when the Vichy government’s Nazi-aligned policies are at their height. Jews in France are in danger no matter where they are, and young seamstress Claudette Pelletier is always on edge. While she is not Jewish, she has a disability affecting her leg that makes her mobility an issue. And as she closely watches what is happening to the Jewish people of France, she always keeps the idea in the back of her mind that it won’t be too long before they start rounding up disabled people as well. The other storyline takes place in 1968-1969, involving Israeli naval agents secretly working in France to ensure that the boats they have paid for are delivered, even after France reneges on their deal. 

Both of these timelines converge around a single point—the baby with an infamous tattoo of a Jewish star on the bottom of his foot. If it seems like a strange tattoo for a Jewish person to have in 1942, it was, and in 1969 as well. There’s a prohibition on tattoos in Judaism, which any practicing Jewish person would know. But during and after WWII, Israeli agents roamed Europe to find and save Jewish children and bring them to Israel (or the British Mandate for Palestine, depending on the year) under a program known as Youth Aliyah. The baby with the star tattoo was saved by Youth Aliyah agents and adopted and raised by a family in Israel. And while the later timeline is ostensibly about the Cherbourg boats, Sharon finds a distraction from her grief by exploring the story of this baby with the star tattoo.

I found it easy to empathize with Sharon for the most part. She was orphaned at six weeks old and raised by her Savta (grandmother), and then her fiancé was killed in a submarine accident before their wedding. We first meet her in the depth of her grief, when it feels like nothing is going to reach her. But the opportunity to visit the country her mother came from, combined with her Savta’s encouragement, finally pushes her to get out of her comfort zone. But while Danny, her boss, is focused solely on his mission, Sharon’s attention is divided. She does what she needs to do, but she also takes advantage of the opportunity to learn more about Danny’s history with Youth Aliyah in an effort to find out more about her own mother—except what she learns about isn’t her own mother, but Danny’s convoluted history.

At times it felt like Sharon was overly fixated on Danny’s story, and didn’t easily take the hint that he wasn’t as interested in learning more about it, but then again, I remembered that she’s twenty years old. At that age, I wasn’t that different. Plus, it’s really her first time away from home and doing things on her own—she’s spent her entire life with her Savta offering guidance and wisdom. She showed a lot of growth over the course of the book, as did the people around her. I also found it easy to like Claudette as well. She was smart and adapted quickly to situations, thinking and acting fast in dangerous and life-threatening situations. Both of them are strong, brave women, and I loved how Carner wrote them. 

Overall, this was a fascinating story. I learned a lot about the historical aspects of two major events affecting both Jewish and Israeli history, and at no point did it feel like I was learning. I was caught up in the story immediately, and both timelines were so interesting I couldn’t figure out which one I liked better. Ultimately, I got so caught up in the story that I couldn’t put it down. The way that the characters are written and interact and grow, combined with the setting and the gripping plot, plus the beautiful writing kept me glued to the pages. This is one that I can gladly recommend to all.

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